of hogs and monkeys. In secret, however, human bodies were not infrequently delivered to the scalpel, and the offices of many internal organs were observed and determined by the aid of vivisection,--a practice indispensable to a proper understanding of surgery, yet reprobated, even in our age of scientific inquiry, by a class of noisy, but well-meaning, fanatics. The unsatisfactory memorials of the School of Salerno which have descended to us--some of doubtful authenticity, others of unknown derivation--nevertheless disclose the extraordinary discoveries its professors had made in anatomy; among them those of the functions of the chyle ducts, of the lymphatic system, of the capillaries, which then received their name; of the different coats and humors of the eye; of the phenomena of digestion, together with detailed descriptions of the office of the ovaries and their tubes, which anticipated the researches of Falloppio by more than four hundred years. Specialists then, as now, devoted their talents to the improvement and perfection of certain branches of medical science. There were many celebrated oculists and lithotomists, and practitioners who were highly successful in the treatment of hernia, of mechanical injuries of every kind, and of the diseases of women. The rules of hygiene, the properties of the various substances of the Materia Medica, the principles of pathology and therapeutics, as laid down by the faculty of Salerno, have been transmitted to us in a lengthy and curious poem entitled, “Flos Medicinæ Scholæ Salerni,” popularly known as Regimen Sanitatis. This extraordinary production, none of which is probably later than the twelfth century, and whose origin is unknown, has been ascribed by Sprengel to Isaac ben Solomon, a famous Jewish practitioner of Cordova, who died in 950. Careful examination, however, discloses the fact that it is not the work of a single hand, but a compilation of various medical precepts and opinions belonging to different epochs. In its prologue, the pre-eminent value of temperance in all things is diligently inculcated: “Si vis incolumem, si vis te vivere sanum: Curas linque graves, irasci crede profanum. Parce mero, cœnato parum; non sit tibi vanum Surgere post epulas; somnum fuge meridianum. Si tibi deficiant Medici, medici tibi fiant Hæc tria; mens læta, requies, moderata diæta.” It also contains hints on diagnosis and prognosis; information indicating no small degree of anatomical and physiological knowledge; formulas for antidotes of poisons; advice for the care of the body during every month in the year; and astrological indications of the favorable or malign influence of the signs of the zodiac and the stars. From the following couplet, designating the Seven Ages of Man, “Infans, inde puer, adolescens, juvenis, vir, Dicitur inde senex, postea decrepitus,” seems to have been derived the inspiration of the familiar lines of Shakspeare.